Related papers: Charge Asymmetry Suppresses Coarsening Dynamics in…
The formation of coacervates through phase separation of oppositely charged polyelectrolytes (PEs) is critical for understanding biological condensates and developing responsive materials. Traditionally, coacervates are viewed as spherical…
A new type of phase separation in the polyelectrolyte solutions consisting of several types of charged macromolecules differing in their degree of ionization is predicted via a general thermodynamic consideration. We show that even a small…
Complex coacervation, known as the liquid-liquid phase separation of solutions with oppositely charged polyelectrolytes, has attracted substantial interest in recent years. We study the effect of the charge regulation (CR) mechanism on the…
Understanding the behavior of charged complex fluids is crucial for a plethora of important industrial, technological, and medical applications. Using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, here we investigate the properties of a…
Phase separation in salt-free symmetric mixtures of oppositely charged rodlike polyelectrolytes is studied using quasi-analytical calculations. Stability analyses for the isotropic-isotropic and the isotropic-nematic phase transitions in…
Liquid-liquid phase separation has emerged as one of the important paradigms in the chemical physics as well as biophysics of charged macromolecular systems. We elucidate an equilibrium phase separation mechanism based on charge regulation,…
We study phase equilibria in a minimal model of charge-regulated polymer solutions. Our model consists of a single polymer species whose charge state arises from protonation-deprotonation processes in the presence of a dissolved acid, whose…
We investigate the collapse kinetics of charged polymers (polyelectrolytes) induced by counterion condensation using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. Under good solvent conditions, polyelectrolytes above the critical charge…
We consider the phase behavior of polymeric systems by calculating the structure factors beyond the Random Phase Approximation. The effect of this correction to the mean-field RPA structure factor is shown to be important in the case of…
We propose a framework to study the spatio-temporal evolution of liquid-liquid phase separation of weak polyelectrolytes in ionic solutions. Unlike strong polyelectrolytes, which carry a fixed charge, the charge state of weak…
We investigate the complexation of a highly charged sphere with a long flexible polyelectrolyte, \textit{both negatively charged} in salt free environment. Electroneutrality is insured by the presence of divalent counterions. Using…
Similarly-charged polymers in solution, known as polyelectrolytes, are known to form aggregated structures in the presence of oppositely charged counterions. Understanding the dependence of the equilibrium phases and the dynamics of the…
We report results from a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation on the conformations of a long flexible polyelectrolyte complexed to a charged sphere, \textit{both negatively charged}, in the presence of neutralizing counterions in the strong…
Interplay of Coulomb interaction energy, free ion entropy, and conformational elasticity is a fascinating aspect in polyelectrolytes (PEs). We develop a theory for complexation of two oppositely charged PEs, a process known to be the…
Macromolecular solubility in solvent mixtures often exhibit striking and paradoxical nature. For example, when two well miscible poor solvents for a given polymer are mixed together, the same polymer may swell within intermediate mixing…
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in complex coacervation, driven by concerted efforts to offer novel experimental and theoretical insights into electrostatic charge-induced association. While previous studies have…
The functionalities and applications of complex coacervates -- liquid condensates resulting from liquid-liquid phase separation of charged polymers -- are significantly influenced by the dispersion and aggregation states of guest…
Studies of the thermodynamics of complex coacervation of pairs of symmetric, strongly ionizable, oppositely charged polyelectrolyte chains are abundant. To generalize such understanding to asymmetric chain lengths and variable ionizability…
The formation of (bio)molecular condensates via liquid-liquid phase separation in cells has received increasing attention, as these coacervates play important functional and regulatory roles within biological systems. However, the majority…
A living polymers transition is found in molecular dynamics simulations of a charge-symmetric size-asymmetric electrolyte with no anisotropic interactions. The fluid has strong polymeric character at low temperatures, where it consists of…